Road Trip
by Oh My Freakin' Freakin
Summary: Artemis in a car with a Butler cousin and Butler . Totally made up, but I tried to keep Artemis in character. If you hate it, leave me nasty reviews. I like nasty reviews. One-shot. I may add more later; leave a good review if you want me to, and I will.
1. Slugbug!

A black limo cruised through the streets of the Dublin suburbs. Its windows were blacked and mirrored, and the walls, in addition to being bulletproof and 3 feet thick, were meticulously padded and sealed so that not a single whisper of sound would ever make it to prying ears outside the shining black automobile.

It was the sort of thing that would make almost anyone wonder, unless they were either very boring or very interesting indeed, to be the type of person who no longer even wonders at such things. But, for the rest of humanity, the limo was intriguing, a mystery. Many a traveler had seen that limo pull past, sliding through the air like an alligator on wheels, and wondered what could be going on inside. Many a traveler would have liked very dearly to find out.

Now picture one of those travelers has been granted their wish. Picture our hypothetical traveler floating disembodied, an invisible fly on the wall. And to be inside that limo on that particular day, our theoretical witness would see a scene unfolding, somewhat like… _this._

"Slugbug!" Alexa Butler exclaimed gleefully, punching Artemis Fowl on the arm for what felt like the five thousandth time in the past half hour.

"Must you really do this _every_ time you see a Beetle?" Artemis sighed, rubbing his arm where she had punched him.

"Yes," She said, and glanced out the window. "Slugbug!"

"_Ow! _That's-- the-- same-- one!" Artemis said through gritted teeth. Dear God, how would he survive going on a road trip with this-- this-- caffeinated monstrosity? Not to say that there was anything particularly monstrous about Alexa, at least in appearance. She was tall and slim, with long, frizzy red hair that seemed to get in Artemis's face more often than it got in her own. In facial features, she took after her older cousin Juliet. She had her eldest cousin Domovoi's bottomless blue eyes, around which she wore a hazy frame of shimmering brown-bronze eye shadow. Alexa was a Hollywood stunt double at the age of fourteen, she loved coffee a bit more than was really good for her, she went by "Lexxie" and hit anyone who called her Alexa, hard. And this was who Artemis Fowl was being forced to spend nine hours with, in an enclosed space.

"Really?" The caffeinated monstrosity asked, peering out the window. "Are you _sure_ that's the same one? Oh, maybe you're right, now that you mention it. Oh well."

'_Oh well'? _thought Artemis. '_Oh well'? Is that all she has to say for herself?_ The young genius thought back to when Juliet had first proposed the idea of this cross-country road trip. '_It'll be fun,' she said, _he recollected bitterly. '_What's the worst that could happen?', she said. Well, I don't know her opinion, but I'd say _this _is your answer right here._

"Cruiser bruiser!" Lexxie announced, triumphantly adding yet another bruise-to-be to Artemis's fast-growing collection.

"Say _what _now?"He sighed, rubbing his arm. Again.

"P.T. Cruiser. Black, over there."

"I'd prefer it if you could pick one vehicle and stick with it."

"But that's no fun!"

"Whose opinion of 'fun' are we talking about here?"

"School bus!"

"_Ow!_ You can't just--"

"Well, there _was_ a school bus."

"That's not the point! What I'm saying is, you can't just punch me for every--"

"Oh, look," she commented, punching him. "_Car._"

-=[a]=-

In the front seat, Butler smiled to himself without relaxing. Relaxing was not something Butlers _did_. Even looking at Lexxie, you could tell that. He listened to the squabble going on between Master Fowl and her in the back seat, amusement flickering on his face. He would get involved if absolutely necessary, of course, but in the meantime, it was time Artemis learned to fight some of his own battles- at least where females were concerned. He went back to scanning the road, ever on edge. But he kept an ear on the back seat, because things were starting to get interesting.


	2. Conversation?

Artemis sat in the back of the limo. He sat there, and he sat there. Stony silence was his only response to any comments Lexxie threw his way. That didn't matter to her, because, really, she only needed other people around when she was talking just so that she wouldn't be talking to herself, because that would mean she was _crazy_. But, really, you could drop the girl on a desert island with a coconut with ears, and her ability to carry on a conversation would never even swerve.

"And you know what I think is the coolest invention of the twenty-first century?" she was chattering. "Those toasters that burn a smiley face onto your toast!" No reaction from Artemis. She continued, enthusiasm undamped. "They are so freakin' awesome! I mean, what better way to start your morning than with toast that smiles? It's so-" She searched for an adjective "so- perkifying!"

_You, my overly caffeinated friend, do not need any more 'perkifying.' _Artemis thought, his face betraying nothing. _What y__ou need is 40 days of coffee-addiction rehab, and possibly a coma. A _long _coma._

"Oh!! You know what would be even _more _freakin' awesome? A toaster that burns the album art from _Have A Nice Day _by Bon Jovi into your toast!! You ever seen that album cover? Oh, right, they're American, you probably don't know them. Anyway, the cover looks like this…" She pulled a red Sharpie out of her purse, followed by a black one, and began to scribble something on her wrist. "So there's a solid red square, hang on just a sec drawing red square la la la la la elevator music while you wait- Ta-Dah! And then there's the black outline of another square inside the red square (la la la la drawing drawing), and _then _there's this mildly murderous-looking smirking black smiley face (la la lala laa) inside it all!" She flourished the finished sketch on her wrist in front of Artemis's face. Artemis counted to ten, slowly, and breathed out through his nose. Before he got to four, Lexxie was talking again.

"Of course, there wouldn't be the red, because you can't burn toast into colors, duh. It would just be the outline, and the smirking smiley. Huh, does that make it a smirkey? Ha! Smirkey! That's so fun to say! Smirkey smirkey smir-" She broke off as a new thought hit her. "_Ohhhhh _my god oh my _god,_ you know what would be sooo freakin' amazing??? A toaster… that burns a picture of a waffle into your toast!!!!" She said, going for the dramatic big reveal. She grinned at Artemis, looking more than slightly manic.

"Couldn't you just eat a waffle?" Artemis commented acidly, breaking his no-response rule.

"Well… yeah… you could, but... where's the fun in _that_?" She asked, genuinely puzzled as to why he would even suggest something like that. Artemis gave up, and went back to sitting. This would be a _long_ car trip. "Oh! That reminds me. Well, no, actually, it doesn't remind me, but I just remembered. I'm taking a poll. If you saw a vampire, lying dead in the street, would you eat it?"

"_What!?"_

"If you saw a vampire, lying dead in the street, would you-"

"No! What kind of sicko question is that!? And I hate vampires! They're not even real!"

"You… just voiced... an _opinion_." Lexxie said, her voice hushed.

"What? No, I-" Artemis said, getting a little flustered.

"I _knew _it!" Lexxie said, almost to herself. Then she raised her face to the ceiling and shouted, "It's ALIIIIIIIVE!!!!!"

Artemis glowered, and went back to stony-silence mode. Lexxie continued to stare upward.

"…Wow." She said, after a while. "This ceiling is really shiny."

Artemis mentally banged his head against a wall. Over. And. Over.

* * *

**Author's Note: I know I said this was a one-shot, but some people seemed to like it, so, _voila! _Chapter Two. Does this make it a two-shot? I dunno...  
I think I'll keep adding to this story, seeing as it wasn't quite the Total Fail I'd expected it to be. Maybe, if I keep on adding long enough, I'll even get around to making a plotline of some sort!  
...Don't get your hopes set too high, though. **

**P.S. Do you guys like Lexxie? She's, pretty obviously, an original character, but I didn't want to start off completely stranded, so I based her off a real person. An anonymous real person. But, as a character, do you like her? Please review!**


	3. Baseball and Bad News

Butler was listening. Butler was always listening. Even now... he was starting to get a bad feeling about this road trip. Artemis and Lexxie had been in an enclosed space together for over 4 hours now, and he had just gotten a call from Juliet, saying that the trip would have to be extended. So now, they had two more days on the road, instead of five hours... He hated it when Juliet did things that forced him to change plans so quickly. Changing plans quickly meant going in unprepared. And he _hated_ going in unprepared. Not only that, but he was afraid Artemis's head would blow up if he had to remain in Lexxie's presence much longer. It was the strain of being so cool and collected all the time, Butler reflected. And then you throw someone like Lexxie into the mix, and the pressure just builds up and builds up until something pops. Butler sighed, turned his eyes back to the road, and prayed for deliverance from road trips.

-=[n]=-

Artemis closed his eyes, and prayed for deliverance from road trips.

"Artemis?" Butler said, still scanning the road. Artemis had never really relied on him as an official bodyguard since the incident with Spiro's guard, but old habits died hard.

"Yes?" replied Artemis, sitting up a little straighter even than normal. _"Are we there now?" _He almost asked, but he bit the words back in his mouth. It sounded so... childish. Even though he had to admit to himself, he was dying to get relief from the constant _energy_ that was Lexxie Butler, he would never be caught dead asking Butler if they were _there_ yet. Like a whiny 8 year-old in the back seat.

"I just got a call from Juliet. She and your mother got an early flight to their destination, so... we'll be on the road for two more days."

"What?" Artemis was speechless for a moment. "Couldn't we get a flight too?"

"They're all booked. Every last one. I checked."

"There must be some other way! Call for the jet!"

"I did." There was reluctance in Butler's voice.

"And?"

"...It's in the shop."

"What?"

"Sorry, Artemis. It's two more days on the road."

_This is not happening, _thought Artemis. _I'm going to close my eyes, and when I open them, this will all have been a dream._ He tested this theory. It didn't work. Even with his eyes closed, he could still hear Lexxie talking. She had stayed silent for his entire exchange with Butler, but now the dam burst.

"So, yeah, you know today is Opening Day for the Cubs? The Chicago Cubs? Baseball team? Yeah, well, they're great. Fantastic! Hey, you ever been to Chicago?"

"Nope. Never been there." He lied. Lexxie didn't know anything about the People, and it needed to stay that way.

"Oh, too bad. It's a great city. I live in Hollywood, of course, but I love to visit Chicago. They have something Hollywood just doesn't."

"And what might that be?" Artemis asked. he had not been terribly impressed with the city when he had visited. Maybe this was partly because he had spent the majority of his stay there in the clutches of a megalomaniac, but still.

"Weather." Lexxie answered. "I mean, Hollywood: the city where it never rains! (Not true, actually, but almost.) Chicago: the city where the weather does what the weather wants, and too bad for you if you don't want what the weather wants. Because what the weather wants, the weather gets. I love Chicago."

"It smells like dead pigeons." Artemis said, without thinking. He realized what he'd just as good as admitted to having been there, and froze, but nothing happened. Lexxie skipped half a beat in her conversation, but then she started talking again, and words flowed over the silence like water through a broken dam, burying it so deep Artemis began to wonder if it had even happened. _No. _His brain told him. _It did happen. Didn't you hear it? You heard it. It happened. But then... why wasn't Lexxie saying anything about it, if she noticed?_ It was odd.

-=[y]=-

Lexxie leaned against the window, and thought about what she had just heard. She had long ago developed the remarkable talent to totally isolate her mouth from her mind, so that even as she fully concentrated on this strange development in the road trip, she never stopped talking. Sure, she talked incessantly, but that was just to cover what she really did, which was listening. And she did that quite well. It was remarkable. People would tell you anything if they thought you weren't listening. But she was listening. She was always listening. To everything but what she was saying, of course, because she knew _that _wasn't worth listening to. _How would Artemis know what Chicago smells like if he said he's never been there? Duh. He's lying. But why?_ She turned this over in her head for a while. Then she thought, _D will know. I should grill him later._ D was what she called her eldest cousin, short for Domovoi. In the meantime, she probably shouldn't let Artemis know she'd noticed. She tuned back in to what she was saying, just to make sure she didn't say anything private. Huh. She'd been talking about cheeseburgers? Really? Ah well. She shrugged mentally, and went with the flow.


	4. The Beginning

Artemis leaned against the seat back, and sighed. Lexxie seemed to have finally run out of caffeine a few minutes ago, and was now lightly sleeping with her face pressed against the window. She looked almost pretty now that she wasn't annoying the heck out of him. He could hear himself think again, and he realized now how much he had taken a simple thing like silence for granted all his life. He listened to the silence, savoring every single thing that he didn't hear come out of Lexxie's mouth. He reveled in the quiet for a few minutes, ...then pulled out his laptop.

-=[b]=-

Lexxie was not, in fact, sleeping. She'd just gotten bored of acting awake, and decided to try acting asleep. She wondered how convincing she was. Well, she couldn't very well ask Artemis, could she? It would spoil the point of the whole pointless exercise. Wait... was that right? Whatever. She decided to give one of her second-favorite activities a try, which was listening in on other people's private conversations. She hadn't expected Artemis to be having a conversation, but, apparently, he was talking to someone via webcam or something. Hmmm...

-=[o]=-

Artemis opened his laptop, and realized he had a message waiting from Holly. Holly. He hadn't heard from her in ages, so his first impression was that something must be wrong. Artemis's impressions, on the other hand, rarely were, and this was no exception. He clicked the message, and was greeted by a live feed of Holly's face.

"Artemis!" she said. "I was wondering when you would pick up. Where are you?"

"Somewhere in the middle of Roadtrip Hell. Hang on, I should probably put earbuds in. Right now, the whole car can hear." He plugged in earbuds, and inserted the microspeakers into his ears. "All clear."

"So... Roadtrip Hell, huh?" Holly asked, attempting to suppress a smile, and almost managing it.

"Yes." Artemis grimaced. "I've been stuck in a car with Butler's caffeinated cousin for over four hours now, and she _just __doesn't stop_."

"Stop what?" Holly queried, raising an eyebrow.

"_Anything_." He made a gesture to ward off evil. "So...what's wrong?"

"How did you know something was wrong?" Holly's voice carried only the faintest hint of sarcasm.

"Because you're calling me." He touched a finger to his forehead. "We genii pick up on things like that."

Holly rolled her eyes. "Well... there's a problem."

It was Artemis's turn to roll his eyes. "Did we not just establish that I know this already?"

"Okay, we have a major problem." She confessed. "We might need your help-"

"Might?" He repeated, smiling.

_God, Artemis, don't make me beg. _Holly thought, glaring at the camera. _I am not in a mood to beg._ "We will need your help." She amended, stiffly. "Probably."

"How probably?" His smirk grew even more infuriating.

"Artemis..." Holly started, and ran through possible sentence endings in her head. None of them were likely to get Artemis on board, so she swallowed her pride and started over. "Listen, I wouldn't even be talking to you if it wasn't dead necessary for the Haven." _Oh, _that_ came out well, Holly. Way to insult him _and _boss him around in the same sentence. _Luckily, the last part wiped all traces of smirking from Artemis's formerly smug face.

"That bad?" He asked, quietly.

She shook her head tersely. "No. Worse."

Artemis glanced around, then steepled his fingers together. "You'd better start from the beginning."

* * *

**A/N: I said there might be a plot. Now there is. And I don't know what. I need your help! Please review and give me your suggestions. I know, I probably shouldn't have started this if I didn't know where to take it from here, but,.. but,... but _because_. So, please, help me! I will update as soon as possible, but I need your suggestions first. Please!  
xoxo,  
****Freakin' Freakin' **


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